TOP 5 DISCONTINUED THEMES THAT NEED TO COME BACK! (Least to best)

MrJackson · January 2019

I actually think @Aanchir makes some rrally valid points....

tamamahm · January 2019

I think the problem is this...

I have seen that often it is the younger that gravitate to generic themes...Castle, Pirates, Space, Police, Fire...but.. they quickly transition out of these themes in today’s society to more licensed detailed themes. These generic themes were huge when I was a kid for a much larger age range than they are today. In preschool, I might see kids play those type of generic themes, but by the time they were hitting K-2nd in the states, many of them were far more into a theme like Ninjago, Star Wars, Marvel/DC. This was not the case when I was a kid. Generic themes just ran far longer. (Lego ran across this when they tried a reboot of Western, and found that it truly was a dead theme and not really a younger kid theme.)

Because of this, I think putting out these sorts of generic themes today, are not going to do as well with the group where the real sales are (6-10 year olds).

I almost think what Lego needs to do is make a Lego Classic Theme line or rebrand Lego City to something like that. Then is your theme you have your generic items such as Police/Fire/Pirates/Space/Castle, where your sellers are really targeted to your much younger builder. Imaginext actually did something like this, so it seems they recognized the reality of some of these generic themes.
They just need to figure out what the analogous large sets are of fire and police station in those added lines. Obviously for Castle it is a Castle, and Pirate is probably a ship. Then either you keep refreshing those 5 themes, or you target 4 of them out at once, and continual rotate one back in, and you continually refresh your big seller.

Then you still have your detailed license specific castles in your various lines, from HP, Nexo Nights, Chima, Elves, Angry Birds, etc.

I actually think a modern day castle theme in terms of Fortnite, would sell crazy well to their core, even while that is truly not what many AFOL’s would like. What I think would be awesome for AFOLs would be for TLG do a Castle them akin to modulars. A modular castle system, where there is one big release a year. I think that would better fit.

Gibbo1959 · January 2019

Astrobricks said:

prevere said:

Time cruisers. Hear me out. I'm not talking about the bumbling hodge podge Lego did in the late 90s, but a reimagination of the theme with a story line. Maybe call it Time Treasures.

Character going back thru time visiting historical places or key moments. Great educational opportunities!

So, Quantum Leap?

No, The Time Tunnel! #showingmyage

Gibbo1959 · January 2019

natro220 said:

Lego combined Space and Castle with Nexo Knights. What about Space Pirates? Along the lines of the Ravagers in Guardians of the Galaxy. They could have some interesting ship designs.

Or the Reavers from Firefly. Real space punk zombie mash up.

CCC · January 2019

^^ The Elves castle contains no males. If that was a modern City set, I reckon it would be 2 male, 1 female. But more than that, the minidolls cannot be used as the other gender, whereas many male minifigures can be used as females if hair is replaced and in some cases if they have headgear, don't even need that. Classic castle sets do tend to focus on soldiers and historically these would have been men. However, nothing stops you from pretending they are women, unless you expect them to wear lipstick during a battle.

But I have no problem with Lego making a series aimed primarily at girls (my daughter has quite a few of the sets), I just wonder if it would have sold better and lasted longer if it had been marketed towards girls and boys. I bought half a dozen Farran minidolls that my son plays with when he plays with his sister.

Aanchir · January 2019

TheBigLegoski said:

^ Wow, you got some serious issues. Good luck with that.
Btw. When I earlier mentioned that I like to see a castle theme return, I really mean Castle theme, as in: fortresses with armoured knights and soldiers armed to the teeth ready to take each other on either in seige war, or more peaceful jousting tournaments and that sort of thing. Why because that is what I thought was cool when I was a little kid, and I know plenty of (mainly) boys still think is cool, and I today as a grown man still think is cool.
This is Lego Castle theme:
https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Castle
The Elves theme is not Castle. Period! It is a girly fantasy theme, and that is cool too, but it is a whole different ballpark/game.

I've got issues? Really? Maybe your earlier post did describe the Castle theme, but none of my posts in this thread were even in response to you. I replied to @prevere's post and @CCC's post. You're the one who saw comparisons between Elves and capital-C Castle in the context of having sets that can appeal to castle-loving kids and took that extremely personally for whatever reason.

And because you personally define the LEGO Castle theme in such specific terms doesn't mean that everybody does. In fact, I have seen several D&D-esque "LEGO Castle" MOCs created by AFOLs that contain pretty much the same sorts of subject matter as LEGO Elves (dragons, elves, inns, markets, catapults, airships, carnivorous plants, sailing ships, castles, evil lairs, magical weapons, mysterious portals, etc), only without the visual cues that lead so many male AFOLs to disregard Elves sets as "too girly".

What's more, I've heard many AFOLs say they'd have no trouble including LEGO Elves as part of their LEGO Castle collections if it had traditional minifigures instead of mini-dolls and a more subdued color palette. After all, the mini-doll characters in this year's Elves sets are pretty much as heavily armed and armored as the main protagonists in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit sets you were praising earlier in the thread (of whom only Gimli even wore a helmet).

Contrast with Nexo Knights, which is loaded with kings, queens, knights, soldiers, jesters, horses, swords, lances, crossbows, maces, battle axes, catapults, monsters, siege engines, etc, but which many adult fans of LEGO Castle perceive as an outright slap in the face! Because from their perspective, the defining principle of LEGO Castle is its low-tech medieval fantasy setting, not its emphasis on feudalistic armed combat scenarios.
With regard to the question I asked at the end of my last post, I get the sense you're securely in the latter camp. That's not something you have to apologize for… so long as you understand that doesn't mean LEGO is totally letting down kids and adults with a taste for castles and related medieval fantasy sets. And as I said in my earlier reply in this topic, I have the utmost confidence that another take on LEGO Castle will be coming before long. It always does, even if the form it takes isn't always to everyone's particular tastes (least of all mine).

tmgm528 · January 2019

@Aanchir Couldnt agree more, Elves is quintesential high fantasy Castle (no different from fantasy era castle really) just with (like you said ) a brighter color pallet and mini dolls. For someone to argue it isnt is to argue that any Castle set with a dragon isnt Castle.

Baby_Yoda · January 2019

Aanchir said:
...any time they include so much as one female knight, warrior, or soldier, we start seeing AFOL nimrods whine about "political correctness" and "historical inaccuracy" and "brainwashing" and "cultural Marxism"...

It's the butterfly effect. One Lego figure with red lips being produced on one side of the world sparks a Communist revolution on the other...

Aanchir · January 2019

CCC said:

^^ The Elves castle contains no males. If that was a modern City set, I reckon it would be 2 male, 1 female. But more than that, the minidolls cannot be used as the other gender, whereas many male minifigures can be used as females if hair is replaced and in some cases if they have headgear, don't even need that. Classic castle sets do tend to focus on soldiers and historically these would have been men. However, nothing stops you from pretending they are women, unless you expect them to wear lipstick during a battle.

But I have no problem with Lego making a series aimed primarily at girls (my daughter has quite a few of the sets), I just wonder if it would have sold better and lasted longer if it had been marketed towards girls and boys. I bought half a dozen Farran minidolls that my son plays with when he plays with his sister.

I mean, with pre-90s Castle theme you could make a case that the characters are completely gender-neutral, but from 1992 onward there was an explosion in characters with facial hair (which isn't to say women can't have facial hair, but absent any other visual cues it pretty strongly implies those characters are intended as male).

In 1992, 13 out of the 28 figures in new Castle sets had facial hair.
In 1993 to 1994 (the years the first Castle sets I owned as a kid came out), literally every non-ghost minifigure in new Castle sets had facial hair (though, in fairness, Majisto's wizard beard was removable).
In 1995–1996, 21 out of 40 figs in new Castle sets had facial hair.
In 1997, 18 out of 24 minifigs in new Castle sets had facial hair — though this year also introduced the first obvious female Castle minifigure of my childhood, Willa the Witch.
In 1998, 20 out of 40 minifigs in new Castle sets had facial hair. Again, Willa was the only obvious female character.
In 1999, finally a little closer to parity! Out of 21 minifigs in new Castle sets, only four minifigures were obviously intended as male (the Ninja sensei, shogun, and bandit samurai), while two were obviously designed as female (the new white ninja princess). But of course, there's some dispute over whether any of that year's sets are "real Castle". Also of note: this is the point at which the classic, featureless "smiley face" disappears from LEGO Castle.
And in 2000, 24 out of 37 minifigures in new Castle sets had masculine designs with facial hair, while four (Queen Leonora, Princess Storm, and one of the two new green ninja minifigures) had feminine designs with lipstick and eyelashes.

So I can't say I agree that Castle minifigures' gender is that much more open to interpretation than Elves mini-dolls' gender, except in terms of the Elves characters wearing less concealing clothing that would be about as noticeably feminine on a minifigure.

As for the historical accuracy aspect, it's probably true that most medieval soldiers would be men, but women in medieval times were not nearly as passive as they are often perceived in the modern day. The Public Medievalist's series on Gender, Sexism, and the Middle Ages makes for some fascinating reading and challenges a lot of revisionist history that for centuries has been more or less taken for granted.

oldtodd33 · January 2019

Aanchir said:

CCC said:

^^ The Elves castle contains no males. If that was a modern City set, I reckon it would be 2 male, 1 female. But more than that, the minidolls cannot be used as the other gender, whereas many male minifigures can be used as females if hair is replaced and in some cases if they have headgear, don't even need that. Classic castle sets do tend to focus on soldiers and historically these would have been men. However, nothing stops you from pretending they are women, unless you expect them to wear lipstick during a battle.

But I have no problem with Lego making a series aimed primarily at girls (my daughter has quite a few of the sets), I just wonder if it would have sold better and lasted longer if it had been marketed towards girls and boys. I bought half a dozen Farran minidolls that my son plays with when he plays with his sister.

I mean, with pre-90s Castle theme you could make a case that the characters are completely gender-neutral, but from 1992 onward there was an explosion in characters with facial hair (which isn't to say women can't have facial hair, but absent any other visual cues it pretty strongly implies those characters are intended as male).
In 1992, 13 out of the 28 figures in new Castle sets had facial hair.
In 1993 to 1994 (the years the first Castle sets I owned as a kid came out), literally every non-ghost minifigure in new Castle sets had facial hair (though, in fairness, Majisto's wizard beard was removable).
In 1995–1996, 21 out of 40 figs in new Castle sets had facial hair.
In 1997, 18 out of 24 minifigs in new Castle sets had facial hair — though this year also introduced the first obvious female Castle minifigure of my childhood, Willa the Witch.
In 1998, 20 out of 40 minifigs in new Castle sets had facial hair. Again, Willa was the only obvious female character.
In 1999, finally a little closer to parity! Out of 21 minifigs in new Castle sets, only four minifigures were obviously intended as male (the Ninja sensei, shogun, and bandit samurai), while two were obviously designed as female (the new white ninja princess). But of course, there's some dispute over whether any of that year's sets are "real Castle". Also of note: this is the point at which the classic, featureless "smiley face" disappears from LEGO Castle.
And in 2000, 24 out of 37 minifigures in new Castle sets had masculine designs with facial hair, while four (Queen Leonora, Princess Storm, and one of the two new green ninja minifigures) had feminine designs with lipstick and eyelashes.
So I can't say I agree that Castle minifigures' gender is that much more open to interpretation than Elves mini-dolls' gender, except in terms of the Elves characters wearing less concealing clothing that would be about as noticeably feminine on a minifigure.
As for the historical accuracy aspect, it's probably true that most medieval soldiers would be men, but women in medieval times were not nearly as passive as they are often perceived in the modern day. The Public Medievalist's series on Gender, Sexism, and the Middle Ages makes for some fascinating reading and challenges a lot of revisionist history that for centuries has been more or less taken for granted.

The first year for an obviously female character in the Castle line was 1990 from sets #6071 and #6081.

The rest of your comment about facial hair is mis-directed as these were also the first years where Lego started to get more detailed with the faces which by today's standards are pretty plain but more detailed nonetheless. Other than lipstick there wasn't much they could do for female representation.

I still don't see a downside for putting mostly or all male characters in what is generally a boys toy line. And there is nothing wrong with assigning gender roles to people. I also defy you to find more than .00000000001 percent of the female population on the earth having thick dark facial hair. That trait is practically unheard of.

tmgm528 · January 2019

oldtodd33 said:
The first year for an obviously female character in the Castle line was 1990 from sets #6071 and #6081.

The rest of your comment about facial hair is mis-directed as these were also the first years where Lego started to get more detailed with the faces which by today's standards are pretty plain but more detailed nonetheless. Other than lipstick there wasn't much they could do for female representation.

I still don't see a downside for putting mostly or all male characters in what is generally a boys toy line. And there is nothing wrong with assigning gender roles to people. I also defy you to find more than .00000000001 percent of the female population on the earth having thick dark facial hair. That trait is practically unheard of.

Noting there was one woman in 1990 is false equivalency. “Well there was one so....” what? One out of dozens, big whoop.

Other than lipstick there wasnt much they could do? Truly? Im not sure if you’ve noticed but lipstick isnt what defines men and women, its quite easy to make designs that are women without giving lipstick if thats the goal.

I’d argue that Lego is certainly much less of a ‘boys’ line then it once was, so introducing a better balance of men and women is much better. Not to mention the idea that boys cant enjoy a line of toys as much if it has female characters is utterly ridiculous, I suppose the millions of children now growing up with Star Wars cant enjoy the films because the protagonist is now a girl. (Id also argue gender roles are inherently not good, they’re literally key to why sexism is prevalent in society!)

oldtodd33 · January 2019

tmgm528 said:

oldtodd33 said:
The first year for an obviously female character in the Castle line was 1990 from sets #6071 and #6081.

The rest of your comment about facial hair is mis-directed as these were also the first years where Lego started to get more detailed with the faces which by today's standards are pretty plain but more detailed nonetheless. Other than lipstick there wasn't much they could do for female representation.

I still don't see a downside for putting mostly or all male characters in what is generally a boys toy line. And there is nothing wrong with assigning gender roles to people. I also defy you to find more than .00000000001 percent of the female population on the earth having thick dark facial hair. That trait is practically unheard of.

Noting there was one woman in 1990 is false equivalency. “Well there was one so....” what? One out of dozens, big whoop.

Other than lipstick there wasnt much they could do? Truly? Im not sure if you’ve noticed but lipstick isnt what defines men and women, its quite easy to make designs that are women without giving lipstick if thats the goal.

I’d argue that Lego is certainly much less of a ‘boys’ line then it once was, so introducing a better balance of men and women is much better. Not to mention the idea that boys cant enjoy a line of toys as much if it has female characters is utterly ridiculous, I suppose the millions of children now growing up with Star Wars cant enjoy the films because the protagonist is now a girl. (Id also argue gender roles are inherently not good, they’re literally key to why sexism is prevalent in society!)

The poster noted the incorrect date for the first obviously female character, I just corrected them, that's it.

My comment about lipstick was meant for the times. Look at the smiley faces back then, the print was too fat for a lot of detail to be printed in that small of an area. The capabilities and quality have gotten much better since then.

You are completely incorrect about sexism being caused by gender roles. Sexism's root cause is a lack of respect, period.

tmgm528 · January 2019

oldtodd33 said:
You are completely incorrect about sexism being caused by gender roles. Sexism's root cause is a lack of respect, period.

Glad to know Im speaking to the authority on the subject.

Obviously a lack of respect is part of it, but ingraining in the minds of children that boys or girls can only be (or should be) certain things is extremely harmful. It paves the way for harmful thinking

oldtodd33 · January 2019

tmgm528 said:

oldtodd33 said:
You are completely incorrect about sexism being caused by gender roles. Sexism's root cause is a lack of respect, period.

Glad to know Im speaking to the authority on the subject.

Thanks for the acknowledgement. I'm not stupid, I don't need a feminist or psychologist to tell me how to think or live my life.

gmonkey76 · January 2019

natro220 said:

Lego combined Space and Castle with Nexo Knights. What about Space Pirates? Along the lines of the Ravagers in Guardians of the Galaxy. They could have some interesting ship designs.

two words Ice Pirates

Alfredthebuttler · January 2019

To get back to the original subject of this thread, which I think is a pretty fun one. These are the themes I’d love to see return.

Lord of the Rings- I wasn’t buying Legos when these were available and this is a theme I would love to own.

Indiana Jones- once again I wasn’t buying Legos at the time, but I just picked up 4 sets at a garage sale and love how they are completely packed with play features.

Halloween- not necessarily Monster Fighters, you don’t need to fight them. But let’s just say that my daughter started asking when Halloween was back in May and still won’t stop talking about it. We need to have Halloween monster minifigures! Also, pumpkins would be extremely important as well.

Mickey Mouse- they now exist in Duplo, which is great for my daughter, but my son has outgrown Duplos but would definitely love some Mickey Mouse sets.

Ewoks- I know, Star Wars is Legos biggest seller, but it’s been forever since they released any Ewoks sets, plus there needs to be some affordable ones. Imagine if they made sets for the Ewoks movies, I probably watched those more as a kid than I watched Star Wars, of course it helped that we had recorded it onto VHS.

Bumblepants · January 2019

Alfredthebuttler said:

To get back to the original subject of this thread, which I think is a pretty fun one. These are the themes I’d love to see return.

Lord of the Rings- I wasn’t buying Legos when these were available and this is a theme I would love to own.

Indiana Jones- once again I wasn’t buying Legos at the time, but I just picked up 4 sets at a garage sale and love how they are completely packed with play features.

Halloween- not necessarily Monster Fighters, you don’t need to fight them. But let’s just say that my daughter started asking when Halloween was back in May and still won’t stop talking about it. We need to have Halloween monster minifigures! Also, pumpkins would be extremely important as well.

Mickey Mouse- they now exist in Duplo, which is great for my daughter, but my son has outgrown Duplos but would definitely love some Mickey Mouse sets.

Ewoks- I know, Star Wars is Legos biggest seller, but it’s been forever since they released any Ewoks sets, plus there needs to be some affordable ones. Imagine if they made sets for the Ewoks movies, I probably watched those more as a kid than I watched Star Wars, of course it helped that we had recorded it onto VHS.

Chance of Ewok movie sets are the same as Holiday Special sets.

klinton · January 2019

TheBigLegoski said:

Btw. When I earlier mentioned that I like to see a castle theme return, I really mean Castle theme, as in: fortresses with armoured knights and soldiers armed to the teeth ready to take each other on either in seige war, or more peaceful jousting tournaments and that sort of thing.

This is what I meant when I screamed "Castle! Castle! Castle!" earlier: A stone fortress, with readily available battle packs of knights and soldiers.

This is not to say that I don't fully appreciate some of the castles Lego has produced in recent years. I was all over the D2C Cinderella's Castle model. It's an amazing build! I've a couple of thier other castle-esque sets as well, from the Little Mermaid (I bought this one mainly to get Sebastian to tuck into the kitchen in the Cinderella castle, hahaha) and Eclipso's Castle from the SHG line (actually one of my top ten sets, ever, that one!). I did eye several of the Elves sets, but I never did jump in. I understand that I've missed out on some great sets though. The minidolls and brightly coloured parts don't bother me in the slightest. If it's fun to build and looks sharp on a shelf, I'm all set.

I do appreciate that castles are ever present in Lego's product line. I just have a hankering for the castles I enjoyed as a kid, with all of the banners and medieval accouterments. I won't lose any sleep if it never happens, but I was just glibly replying to the thread topic. I'm sorry that it started a heated debate about gender politics.

CCC · January 2019

Aanchir said:

So I can't say I agree that Castle minifigures' gender is that much more open to interpretation than Elves mini-dolls' gender, except in terms of the Elves characters wearing less concealing clothing that would be about as noticeably feminine on a minifigure.
As for the historical accuracy aspect, it's probably true that most medieval soldiers would be men, but women in medieval times were not nearly as passive as they are often perceived in the modern day. The Public Medievalist's series on Gender, Sexism, and the Middle Ages makes for some fascinating reading and challenges a lot of revisionist history that for centuries has been more or less taken for granted.

I somewhat agree, although of course heads from minifigures can be switched to make them look female if they have male facial characteristics such as beards. This cannot be done with minidolls. I wouldn't want to lose all beards for example. Just like I wouldn't want to lose all fancy eyebrows and lipstick. However, I don't think it would harm LEGO to have some female (older / women) characters where they do not have lipstick on. For many girl minifigures, they get by using the same heads as they use for boys. For example, from #70403,

Image: http://img.bricklink.com/ItemImage/MN/0/cas533.png

Clearly female, and the face reflects this as she has fancy eyebrows and lipstick.

Image: http://img.bricklink.com/ItemImage/MN/0/cas534.png

Male as presented. But remove the beard and replace the head, and you have a decent witch.

Presumably male as the head doesn't have lipstick. But does it need to be? The problem is that since just about all women minifigures have lipstick, this one is assumed to be male, combined with the assumption that all knights are male. That is then our own bias, combined with the steer from LEGO that as it doesn;t have lipstick, it is male.

Image: http://img.bricklink.com/ItemImage/MN/0/cas536.png

Again, presumably male, but no reason it should be.

Highly likely to be male as presented due to the beard, but again a head swap cold make it female.

But the problem I have is that the general steer from LEGO is that a character is only (older) female if it has (i) lipstick on the face and (ii) curves to depict hips. I wish they would do more female characters where this is not the case.

If they bring back castle, I'd love them to do more small sets such as blacksmith plus child (with two hairpieces, to easily convert), but instead of this blacksmith:

Image: https://www.bricklink.com/ML/cas413.jpg?0

just lose the chest hair (or better still remove all the yellow skin from the torso).

Then have another set with a milkmaid, cow and child (again, two hairpieces). If the milkmaid has a gender neutral torso, then you could swap heads and hair to make the blacksmith female and the milkmaid into a farmer/peasant. Not all medieval women need to be princesses or busty wenches.

They did a reasonable job in#49292, including hairpieces for a boy and girl, and did a similar thing for birthday sets. Thsione caused a few arguments about minifigures at BL, since the ones in the instructions (that go into the catalogue) don't match the ones on the box. The could have gone even further showing the female hair on the adult character, or included another female hairpiece.

I wouldn't want to lose all gender specific torsos - for dresses and swimwear, short tops, etc I have no problem with the curves and cleavage. Similarly, removing chest hair doesn't really affect the character and makes that torso just as good for female characters. It wouldn't cost much to have extra heads or two sided male/female heads if LEGO really thinks that all women have to wear lipstick, but I'd hope that if they started using more generic heads for women too, then it would soon become natural that a character doesn't have to have make-up to be female. Plus include extra hairpieces so that if a man (or woman) is depicted it can be changed to a woman (or man) - and show this on the box!

As to rereleases, if they do castle again, I'd hope they would include more than just soldiers, have multiple peasants with as gender neutral torsos as possible. I don't mind some busty wenches, but not all women should be shown this way.

If they did Elves again, I'd like to see the main Elves cast as 2+2. They may have tried to include more males (although many of them goblins) later on, but the story is set in wave 1.

Similarly if they did NK again, it wouldn't bother me if they had more females in the main line up.

Same for Ninjago. I think it is too late now, as if they made changes there would be complaints of PC, but the main line-up / story could have included more females.

My number 1 theme to bring back is a proper CMF series. I know it will be coming, but the recent licensed series and themed series makes it feel like they have gone away. But even there, gender neutral torsos where possible. For example:

Image: https://img.bricklink.com/ItemImage/MN/0/col290.png

Would this have been a worse figure if the curves/hips were not shown? It woudl still be clearly female from the hair (and face) but re-usable for men too. Plus it would help normalise that not all women characters have to have that shape. It is a general problem with the minfiigure format, but can look odd when you consider that just about all girls have bigger waists than their mothers in minifigure form. Whereas ones like this, keep as female for variety.

LusiferSam · January 2019

oldtodd33 said:

The first year for an obviously female character in the Castle line was 1990 from sets #6071 and #6081.

Well that's blatantly untrue. #383/#6083 had a obvious female. #6023, #6067 and #6060 also had female character. Those might be a little less obvious, but they are clearly female. If you meant the head/torso combos were the first female specific head/torso combos in the Castle, than yes that is true.

CCC · January 2019

LusiferSam said:

#6023 ... also had female character. Those might be a little less obvious, but they are clearly female.

There is a pretty big clue in the set name too!

oldtodd33 · January 2019

LusiferSam said:

oldtodd33 said:

The first year for an obviously female character in the Castle line was 1990 from sets #6071 and #6081.

Well that's blatantly untrue. #383/#6083 had a obvious female. #6023, #6067 and #6060 also had female character. Those might be a little less obvious, but they are clearly female. If you meant the head/torso combos were the first female specific head/torso combos in the Castle, than yes that is true.

The post I was responding to was talking about printed faces with beards and I took my information from the first printed female face. I know about the oldest castle sets but theoretically you could swap out the head gear on the princes/queen and get a hippie looking male with a necklace a standard pair of legs. So interchangeable from male to female.

TheBigLegoski · January 2019

@Aanchir

"I've got issues? Really?"

Yes! You do, as you for some reason find it necessary to go out on a limb, and start ranting about (and I quote; everything in between "..." is where I quote you) how according to you:

"we start seeing AFOL nimrods whine about "political correctness" and "historical inaccuracy" and "brainwashing" and "cultural Marxism", just as they do pretty much any time a City set has a female firefighter, mechanic, race car driver, or construction worker."

Yet no one here on this topic has done so, nor do you care to provide any support for this wild accusation you make that lacks any evidence, where in fact no one did any whining, and you are the only person whining about how supposedly others are doing so. All people did is merrily reply to the original poster of this topic and tell which themes they like to see make a comeback, and elaborate on in what shape, form and/or blend, in addition to some new themes the would be happy to see TLG develop.

No one other than you went on a tangent about 'Cultural Marxism', 'political correctness' etc. etc. You felt it necessary to label Lego fans with who you apparently do not agree as "nimrods" i.e. people you deem stupid and foolish. Should I assume that you are the type of person that is all for inclusiveness except when it comes opinions, especially opinions that diverge from your own, or perhaps rather the ideological/political/religious views you subscribe to?!

Also why do you so often feel the need to act as the self-appointed spokesperson for TLG, taking criticism other Lego fans express as a personal slight? You are, as far as I know, not TLG's public relations manager, and BTW if/when you act like this I hope you never will be. This is a Lego forum where you are amidst many other Lego fans, who are fit to hold their own opinions, regardless of whether those opinions suit you or not. Deal with it.

You wrote:

"You seem to be operating under the assumption that a parent is specifically seeking out a generic, unbranded castle for a kid who likes generic, unbranded castles and ONLY generic, unbranded castles. But how many kids do you really imagine there are who like castles and yet categorically dislike Disney, Angry Birds, Harry Potter, Minecraft, Elves, and Nexo Knights? And do you really think parents are going to reject those themes as gifts for their children because they happen to overlap with multiple interests their child has?"

I am not operating under any of the assumptions you here presume. That is just mere conjecture and projection on your part.

Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with Lego or any other toy company catering to the needs and wishes specifically and/or predominantly to either of the two sexes with particular themes such as e.g.: Lego Castle.

This has nothing to do with as you wrote:

"And then there's that whole thing about Elves alienating boys due to having primarily girl characters. FIrst of all, these days I'm not so sure that a boy couldn't enjoy a toy or series at all because it happens to include primarily girl characters. I mean, it's 2019."

Fact is males and females are biologically different, and so are boys and girls, regardless of it being 2019 or 1984 etc. These differences are not just physiological and chromosomal (XY verses XX chromosome), but also neurological, hormonological, as well as psychologically. Sex (the mammal world is binary: you are either born as a man or a woman) is not a sociological construct, but biologically determined.

So when Lego fans criticize TLG for including e.g.: too many female minifigures in sets in some specific role their criticism may very well be valid. There are no female marines, commando's, firefighters, coast guard rescue workers, etc. who will make the cut when they are held to the same standards as men who seek those type of professions (other than perhaps a few exceptions). Nor is there anything wrong with that as women are good at other things, and make up the majority in other fields. Boys, generally speaking, like to play with minifigures they can identify with, and those are usually male, and the same is true for girls.

What is your obsession with gender and identity politics anyway?!?

For what such information is worth here; I really hope TLG will never get hijacked by this insanity: gender/identity politics is poison.

You wrote:

"none of my posts in this thread were even in response to you. I replied to @prevere's post and @CCC's post."

You post on an open forum, it does not matter whether you replied to one specific person or not. I am free to respond and partake in any and all topics / discussions as I see fit. I do not require your consent, don't act so self-entitled. If you don't like other people responding to you, you should not post on an open forum but send private messages.

You wrote:

"You're the one who saw comparisons between Elves and capital-C Castle in the context of having sets that can appeal to castle-loving kids and took that extremely personally for whatever reason.

And because you personally define the LEGO Castle theme in such specific terms doesn't mean that everybody does. In fact, I have seen several D&D-esque "LEGO Castle" MOCs created by AFOLs that contain pretty much the same sorts of subject matter as LEGO Elves (dragons, elves, inns, markets, catapults, airships, carnivorous plants, sailing ships, castles, evil lairs, magical weapons, mysterious portals, etc), only without the visual cues that lead so many male AFOLs to disregard Elves sets as "too girly"."

Spare me your false narrative full of false innuendoes and insinuations whereby you misrepresent me, what I wrote, twist my words around, and conjure up stuff I never wrote at all into something that only fits your own peculiar agenda. And if you quote me, quote me on what i actually wrote, not something you made up yourself, because that is not just disingenuous, it is disgusting, and i will not tolerate it, never. Too bad I have to write this on a Lego forum, which I visit for my enjoyment, and not to engage in these sorts of arguments, nonetheless I will address it, as I felt needed to, and that is why I write you all of this for the reasons I just stated.

I have said my part (in so far as I had any issues, my slate is now clean), I you have anything you would like to say to me you are welcome. If not, that is fine too. I'll go my merry way on this forum, and you do whatever you do.

The Dude abides. ;-) Clutch, clutch, brick on! :-P

Bumblepants · January 2019

TL:DR

TheBigLegoski · January 2019

klinton said:

TheBigLegoski said:

Btw. When I earlier mentioned that I like to see a castle theme return, I really mean Castle theme, as in: fortresses with armoured knights and soldiers armed to the teeth ready to take each other on either in seige war, or more peaceful jousting tournaments and that sort of thing.

This is what I meant when I screamed "Castle! Castle! Castle!" earlier: A stone fortress, with readily available battle packs of knights and soldiers.

This is not to say that I don't fully appreciate some of the castles Lego has produced in recent years. I was all over the D2C Cinderella's Castle model. It's an amazing build! I've a couple of thier other castle-esque sets as well, from the Little Mermaid (I bought this one mainly to get Sebastian to tuck into the kitchen in the Cinderella castle, hahaha) and Eclipso's Castle from the SHG line (actually one of my top ten sets, ever, that one!). I did eye several of the Elves sets, but I never did jump in. I understand that I've missed out on some great sets though. The minidolls and brightly coloured parts don't bother me in the slightest. If it's fun to build and looks sharp on a shelf, I'm all set.

I do appreciate that castles are ever present in Lego's product line. I just have a hankering for the castles I enjoyed as a kid, with all of the banners and medieval accouterments. I won't lose any sleep if it never happens, but I was just glibly replying to the thread topic. I'm sorry that it started a heated debate about gender politics.

IMO the Castle themes running from 1984 until the early or mid 1990's, and after that from 2007 until 2012, next to the LOTR/Hobbit sets were the best. If TLG would design a theme based on that I would be all over it. Luckily if it won't happen I have plenty of sets, and minifigs etc. from the past to MOC around with.

I have a couple of Elves sets, but to me this theme is not Castle. The elves are cute, the builds in so far as I built all sets I own, are nice. There are a few castles in this theme, but it really all revolves around a bunch of girl elves and one male elf trying to get a human girl back home. By the logic of those that insist on calling it castle, it might as well be labeled a dragon theme, since there are so many of these 'my little pony' style dragons included in this theme. I don't care for those dragons, but kids (mainly girls) do. Some of these sets are interesting because of the variety of parts and colours in it.

ArtfulDodger · January 2019

Bumblepants said:

Alfredthebuttler said:

To get back to the original subject of this thread, which I think is a pretty fun one. These are the themes I’d love to see return.

Lord of the Rings- I wasn’t buying Legos when these were available and this is a theme I would love to own.

Indiana Jones- once again I wasn’t buying Legos at the time, but I just picked up 4 sets at a garage sale and love how they are completely packed with play features.

Halloween- not necessarily Monster Fighters, you don’t need to fight them. But let’s just say that my daughter started asking when Halloween was back in May and still won’t stop talking about it. We need to have Halloween monster minifigures! Also, pumpkins would be extremely important as well.

Mickey Mouse- they now exist in Duplo, which is great for my daughter, but my son has outgrown Duplos but would definitely love some Mickey Mouse sets.

Ewoks- I know, Star Wars is Legos biggest seller, but it’s been forever since they released any Ewoks sets, plus there needs to be some affordable ones. Imagine if they made sets for the Ewoks movies, I probably watched those more as a kid than I watched Star Wars, of course it helped that we had recorded it onto VHS.

Chance of Ewok movie sets are the same as Holiday Special sets.

I'm still waiting for my Ewok Adventure and Battle for Endor Lego sets!

560Heliport · January 2019

^ #8038 The Battle of Endor.

Aanchir · January 2019

oldtodd33 said:

The first year for an obviously female character in the Castle line was 1990 from sets #6071 and #6081.

The rest of your comment about facial hair is mis-directed as these were also the first years where Lego started to get more detailed with the faces which by today's standards are pretty plain but more detailed nonetheless. Other than lipstick there wasn't much they could do for female representation.

I still don't see a downside for putting mostly or all male characters in what is generally a boys toy line. And there is nothing wrong with assigning gender roles to people. I also defy you to find more than .00000000001 percent of the female population on the earth having thick dark facial hair. That trait is practically unheard of.

That's why I said "first of my childhood". I wasn't born in 1990, let alone collecting LEGO!

I disagree that there "wasn't much they could do for female representation", because other themes available during this time (including others I owned like Duplo, Town, Paradisa, Pirates/Islanders, and even Space) were quicker at expanding their roster of female-coded figures (via facial features, clothing, and/or hairstyles), even if they were usually still outnumbered by male-coded ones.

I'm not saying LEGO owed fans more female figures at a time when they were still rather clueless about how to get girls interested in their products, just that the far greater number of overtly male-coded figures than female-coded figures was neither accidental, nor incidental, nor unavoidable. Simply put, most LEGO System themes from 1990 onward (and arguably from even earlier) were aimed more at appealing to boys than to girls.

And I'm not saying that LEGO Castle's typical gender ratios are wrong, necessarily (though I do think they could be improved without alienating boys, as other themes like City have shown). Just that it's sort of strange to act as though swords-and-sorcery themes appealing primarily to girls are excessively alienating to around half the world's population in a way that swords-and-sorcery themes appealing primarily to boys are not. Particularly in the case of a theme like Elves that has MORE balanced gender ratios than the boy-targeted themes it's being compared to.

tmgm528 said:

Obviously a lack of respect is part of it, but ingraining in the minds of children that boys or girls can only be (or should be) certain things is extremely harmful. It paves the way for harmful thinking

I would personally say that restrictive/highly enforced gender roles are an EFFECT of sexism, not a cause of it. A good example of this is how changes in what gender people associate with particular roles or careers (like teachers, computer programmers, fashion designers, etc) result in changes in the level of value or prestige people associate with those roles or careers.

Because it's not a matter of women being pushed towards low-prestige roles and men being pushed towards high-prestige ones, it's societal patterns of sexism assigning value or prestige to those roles based on whether they associate them with men or women… because if a woman can perform this role or job as well as or better than a man, it can't possibly be very demanding, now can it? /sarcasm

tmgm528 · January 2019

@Aanchir I dont disagree! Its a bit of recursion in a way, sort of looping in on itself. Its an effect of sexism that sort of also becomes a cause.

leetshoe · January 2019

I want more Johnny Thunder. l know he's supposed to be a knock-off Indy, but l love the dude more.

CCC · January 2019

Aanchir said:

I'm not saying LEGO owed fans more female figures at a time when they were still rather clueless about how to get girls interested in their products, just that the far greater number of overtly male-coded figures than female-coded figures was neither accidental, nor incidental, nor unavoidable. Simply put, most LEGO System themes from 1990 onward (and arguably from even earlier) were aimed more at appealing to boys than to girls.

I was a kid of the 1970s, and I remember my infant school had quite a few of the Homemaker and similar style sets (the 2x2 brick body buildable figures), and these were incredibly popular with the girls in class.

Image: https://www.bricklink.com/SL/231-1.jpg?0

Looking at the BL dates, LEGO stopped these in about '78, coinciding with the appearance of the first minifigures. I wonder if LEGO made the conscious decision then to stop with these highly girl friendly sets. They must have known then what sells to girls.

Pitfall69 · January 2019

"You guys make me laugh; if Matrix was here, he'd laugh too."

Aanchir · January 2019

TheBigLegoski said:

"we start seeing AFOL nimrods whine about "political correctness" and "historical inaccuracy" and "brainwashing" and "cultural Marxism", just as they do pretty much any time a City set has a female firefighter, mechanic, race car driver, or construction worker."
Yet no one here on this topic has done so, nor do you care to provide any support for this wild accusation you make that lacks any evidence, where in fact no one did any whining, and you are the only person whining about how supposedly others are doing so.

If you've been on Brickset, Eurobricks, or AFOL-related Facebook groups/pages long enough you've probably already seen the evidence you're asking me fore (though some such posts are egregious enough that they wind up getting deleted). If you haven't, it's not my job to do your homework for you, but Huey1's comments here or Itaria's comments here are a couple examples of this sort of all-too-common concern that introducing female minifigures in male-dominated roles is deceptive if not outright malicious.

Now, is it a bit whiny to bring this up here? Sure, I'll admit to that. But I thought it was relevant to CCC's comment about whether the Elves theme was negatively impacted by purported imbalances in its gender ratios, something that people rarely seem concerned about when it concerns even more heavily imbalanced boy-targeted themes. Whereas I still don't get why you seemed to respond to a broad statement about more annoying segments of the AFOL community that you're not a part of as though it was a personal attack or called for an ad hominem response.

TheBigLegoski said:

Also why do you so often feel the need to act as the self-appointed spokesperson for TLG, taking criticism other Lego fans express as a personal slight?

I don't, and I don't see what I've said in this topic that would even seem that way. It's not as though everything I've said here about official LEGO sets or themes has been glowingly positive or optimistic. It's just my opinions about sets and themes I happen to care about, much like those you and others have been sharing.

TheBigLegoski said:

Fact is males and females are biologically different, and so are boys and girls, regardless of it being 2019 or 1984 etc. These differences are not just physiological and chromosomal (XY verses XX chromosome), but also neurological, hormonological, as well as psychologically. Sex (the mammal world is binary: you are either born as a man or a woman) is not a sociological construct, but biologically determined.
So when Lego fans criticize TLG for including e.g.: too many female minifigures in sets in some specific role their criticism may very well be valid. There are no female marines, commando's, firefighters, coast guard rescue workers, etc. who will make the cut when they are held to the same standards as men who seek those type of professions (other than perhaps a few exceptions). Nor is there anything wrong with that as women are good at other things, and make up the majority in other fields.

Your decades old high school level understanding of biology is not only laughably incorrect, but it hardly relates at all to the kind of gendered traits that manifest in LEGO sets, which generally relate to socio-cultural aspects of gender, not biological ones.

Oh, and there ARE female marines, firefighters, coast guard rescue workers, etc… but of course, you know that, because you had to feebly couch that argument by acknowledging "a few exceptions". I'm actually beginning to understand why you took my comments about "AFOL nimrods" whining about feminist brainwashing so personally… you're not really selling me on the idea that you understand the realities of gender any better than they do.

TheBigLegoski said:

You post on an open forum, it does not matter whether you replied to one specific person or not. I am free to respond and partake in any and all topics / discussions as I see fit. I do not require your consent, don't act so self-entitled. If you don't like other people responding to you, you should not post on an open forum but send private messages.

I'm not bothered by you responding to my posts. I just didn't understand why you felt a pressing need to clarify your position on what is or isn't part of the "Castle theme", which I had not disputed — let alone to present your definition as if it had some kind of official basis and wasn't just your personal opinion. Weren't you accusing me a few minutes ago of acting like some kind of LEGO spokesperson or authority?

TheBigLegoski said:

Spare me your false narrative full of false innuendoes and insinuations whereby you misrepresent me, what I wrote, twist my words around, and conjure up stuff I never wrote at all into something that only fits your own peculiar agenda. And if you quote me, quote me on what i actually wrote, not something you made up yourself, because that is not just disingenuous, it is disgusting, and i will not tolerate it, never. Too bad I have to write this on a Lego forum, which I visit for my enjoyment, and not to engage in these sorts of arguments, nonetheless I will address it, as I felt needed to, and that is why I write you all of this for the reasons I just stated.

What? One sentence of that quote relates to my understanding your post (which I had already included in my post in the quote box above, so IDK how you think I'm failing to quote your actual words) and the rest is about perspectives I've seen and heard from other LEGO fans. And all you have in response to the whole of that to generalize it as a "false narrative full of false innuendos and insinuations"? What innuendos? What insinuations?

Anyway, I doubt I'm going to change your mind about much, and from the direction things are headed I'm afraid continuing this discussion much longer might lead you to start trying to explain my OWN gender to me. Regardless, rest assured that your first post in this thread made it pretty clear what you expect to see in a future Castle theme, and I think it's safe to assume that you understand why Elves and Nexo Knights were more my speed.

But just so it's clear, as much as I'd love for the next Castle theme to appeal to me on a similar level, I don't really expect it to, and I'm pretty much alright with that. I survived 24 years without a swords-and-sorcery theme I enjoyed as thoroughly as Elves; it's not like I can't bear waiting for another.

CCC · January 2019

Aanchir said:

But I thought it was relevant to CCC's comment about whether the Elves theme was negatively impacted by purported imbalances in its gender ratios, something that people rarely seem concerned about when it concerns even more heavily imbalanced boy-targeted themes.

It wasn't meant to come across that way. I think Elves has done quite well. My daughter was really into the wave 1 sets, although lost interest when the dragons and trolls came along. Naida's ship in particular was one of my favourite sets for its size of 2015/16.

It was more whether it could have done even better (financially) if it had brought in more boys too. There wasn't much similar fantasy to compete with it at the time, hence the question about whether they could have introduced some more boy-friendly elements than just Farran (and the baker, didn't get that set). It would also have been a good test to see if boys would play with minidolls. Although LEGO may have also done a dis-service to them calling them that, as boys don't play with "dolls", they play with "action figures".

As to the comments about people rarely being concerned about imbalance in boy-targetted themes, it was only five years or so ago that there were loads of press articles about this and LEGO has reacted to that.

tamamahm · January 2019

I find it interesting out of all the themes where Castles are offered, the only theme I keep seeing specifically called out as “not Castle”, is Elves.. and not any of the other half dozen themes mentioned.

@Aanchir I learned long ago that it is simply not worth it on this site to have any sort of discussion in regards to gender.

Again, while I truly understand the want of AFOLs to have those classic themes they grew up with, I think the reality of today’s kids and play is different. Those generic themes truly are far more often geared to preschool kids, while many school kids have gravitated to licensed sets. It is why I think for TLG to release a classic Castle set, they have to go one of two directions...
1) to add Castle, Pirate and classic Space into a new line akin and targeted at the same age range and easier complexity as Police and Fire
2) Create a really awesome modular Castle line, akin to the modulars, carnival, etc. lines that is actually targeted at AFOLs. Think LOTR Castle, but on steroids.

I think focusing on those two niche areas would actual have reasonable sales. I think based on the disappointment by many of Hogwarts being microfig, and not a monstrous large minifig castle that could have been modular, indicates that option 2 is a very viable area for sales.

datsunrobbie · January 2019

The theme I'd like to see come back is the Universal Building sets like #722. It was 301 mostly red bricks. The recent bulk boxes have so many different colors that you only get a few bricks in each color, making it difficult to build anything substantial in a single color. That's also part of what I loved about the Classic Space sets when they came out - lots of parts in the same shade of grey and blue, so we could build reasonable looking x-wings and vipers.

oldtodd33 · January 2019

^ I actually really liked the old Universal sets like the #404. That's where you could really build what you wanted to.

TheBigLegoski · January 2019

@Aanchir

How wonderful, yet another haughty bitter resentful comment full of vitriol by your hand, consisting primarily of empty rhetoric, refuting nothing, but rather just confirming my previous post.

I don't feel like spending much more of my time on you, when all I seem to be doing is squandering it.

I gladly concede if only you wrote something true. You are right about one thing though, trying to engage in a discussion with you is just as fruitful as the scientific validity of those gender studies is void.

https://quillette.com/2018/10/01/the-grievance-studies-scandal-five-academics-respond/

By all means it is an interesting read, and if you don't want to read it all at least have some fun watching the embedded youtube video: Academics expose corruption in Grievance Studies.

You are just an expert in espousing a load of post-modernist cockamamie.

A.k.a. NPC PC SJW

tmgm528 · January 2019

As is evident, we still have a very long way to come as a society before my fellow men realize how patronizing they sound (and are).

As @tamamahm said, these conversations are sadly fruitless here.

My final note on the subject: you know a side has no true response to a debate when terms like SJW are tossed arround meaninglessly.

Brickchap · January 2019

Interesting topic.

Ok so first I'll just list what I would like:

In no order:

Western

Castle

Pirates

Adventurers/Pharaohs Quest (some sort of archeology/history theme that is set in the a time period of 1900-1940 or around that but it must have Johnny Thunder and Prof. whatever his name was [he looked like Jack Jones from Dads Army and always wore a white pith helmet]!!!)

While I will put indiana jones on the list that would definitely clash with the above theme/s and if that does come out would definitely be dependent on the new film. I would LOVE to see another DC 3 (Peril in Peru) or a re-release of shanghai chase (for the old cars) and it was great to get some official WW2 (ish) German and cold war soviet soldiers as well as some military vehicles for those interested without necessary breaking legos rules about no violence/war stuff (that tank from the holy grail would be a good $40-50-60 set but maybe it would be too military centered)

Hopefully sub-themes count as well: That is City harbour, farm and construction. We havent had proper construction theme since 2008-2009, thats a whole decade. Now I know that mining and demolition now come under the construction banner and both are extremely creative ideas (I hated last years mining though, I thought it was a complete flop), we still need a building site theme where things are built. We have had occasional dump trucks, cranes and cement mixers (o and excavators/diggers) over this past decade including this years Great Vehicles Digger (its a bobcat) but a full theme is very necessary and I know would still be extremely popular, plus it goes very well with the idea of building stuff in lego and the 'modular' (creator 3 in 1 ones) system could be easily incorporated.

Going on with things that were in Great Vehicles this year is a farm theme. Now while I personally wouldnt have much interest in one it is a very common request to return and would also be popular I think since tractors and farm machinery are still popular amongst boys but farming is just as popular amonst girls if lego included an 'animal side' as well (a re release of the cow piece would be very welcome as would perhaps a sheep mould) Also, every country in the world has some sort of farming. Now that may not be combine harvesters and crop dusters (that would be a great $15-20 set) but some sort of farming (certainly with animals and crops) can be related to by many.

We havent had a real harbour theme since 2011 although there have been a few boats released since under great vehicles. Why has lego stopped doing harbour (and construction)?? Container ships and cargo transport still seems popular (plus it goes really well with trains and trucks). Plus a bulk carrier, car carrier or people ferry (as opposed to the offical Ferry that was a car ferry) are all ideas of other kinds of ships lego could do. I would love to see an older style cargo ship (Tintin Karabujan style) and hopefully one day an actual fishing boat (trawler or whatever) not just a recreational yacht or speedboat with someone fishing on the back! A flying boat station would be an awesome set too (6 wide plane roughly the size of maybe the 2017 VIP plane but using that heli cockpit piece and obviously no wheels). Another pretty cool set would be one of those boat carrier ships that 'sink' to allow them in (maybe using that hull from the 2015 diver 'big' ship with some sort of lift mechanism on it)

Back to the historical themes. I started a discussion on them specifically and the general consensus was that lego will never do a historical theme again (or even a Creator train, another theme I want to return).

Hopefully this time I will make myself clearer when I say that the reason historical themes dont sell or are supposedly not popular is because 1. there arent any historical things for kids to buy and 2. history in general is not encouraged enough by both companies and adults. Lego can give as many excuses as they like but the reason we havent had castle, pirates or western is the same as the reason we dont get 'war' sets. Its not because they wont sell, its because lego simply chooses not to sell them. (in regards the no-military example I do completely agree with them being anti war, anti military and accept that)

I shall use an example of the probably most popular theme (and most unpopular amongst AFOLs) City police. Now Aanchir reckons that we get lots of castles in other themes and that counts as a castle theme so in retort to that let us suppose that 2020 lego stopped releasing any City police sets and never released any after that. Firstly, while heaps and heaps of kids (and adults) would want to buy city police sets, there would be none on shelves (lets also suppose enough time has elapsed so that any previous city police sets have been already sold out) and so Lego and some fans would argue against re releasing city police because "there not selling, no one is buying them". Then, people such as Aanchir, and lego would argue O we've got a police car and minifigs in Batman, a sheriff in the CMF and a space police theme, that counts as a realistic city police theme!

Now before I continue, that is not meant to be a personal attack on Aanchir, merely proving my point against all who believe these stupid excuses why we shouldnt bring back proper historical themes.

Firstly, a set with some sort of castle DOES NOT make it a good substitute for a medieval theme. Minecraft? CMON. That is completely different and also I can only think of one 'castle' set (The Fortress) so one set in a theme about a COMPUTER GAME about MINING AND MAKING things is NOT at all a medieval theme (and I know minecraft the game is set in the 12th century or whatever but thats beside the point)

I personally am only interested in realistic historical themes. I hate fantasy. Kingdoms was the best 'castle' theme in my opinion. However, I accept that fantasy sells and most fantasy themes (not just lego whether that be LOTR, Hobbit, Game of Thrones etc.) are pretty good at having a realistic 'good guy' side with realistic castles and knights but having enemies that are mythical creatures or sorcerer etc. so people like me can just keep the realistic stuff and sell the fantasy stuff. Maybe another Kingdoms theme wouldnt sell, but the above named movies/TV are all extremely popular (I am well aware GoT is extremely inappropriate for legos target market and I personally hate and despise it but its another example of medieval fantasy being popular in 2019).

Now a Vikings theme would I think be the best possible historical theme lego could do. Vikings (real ones) as well as the TV show are becoming increasing popular amongst society, I for one find real vikings very interesting. Also, Norse mythology (not just Thor) is also popular so combining the two like in the first lego vikings theme would work pretty well. Furthermore, it would be great to see vikings toys without horned helmets and a few sets like Mill Village Raid or Medieval Market village (but for a viking/Scandinavian setting) would both sell well and promote the peaceful lives of vikings as well as their pillaging and fighting.

Brickchap · January 2019

My previous comment was too long so going on from that....

I should also like to mention that for the time period vikings were around (I forget the exact dates I think it was like 900AD to the 12th century or something) Viking women had the most rights of all women in the world. They were allowed fight to defend their farms and homes while the men were away 'going a viking' and I believe could have some sort of democratic say in matters (the men still had more rights but it was pretty good for the time period). So in a Viking theme, female warriors would be acceptable.

But in a regular European medieval theme Aanchir, they would NOT. Whether its political correctness or simply a design choice, there should not be female knights or soldiers in a historical setting. Lego could do a medieval theme which is sort of Lion Knights VS 'barbarians' (they wouldnt be called barbarians maybe just wolf clan or something but be obviously be based on the Huns and barbarian tribes of present day Germany and central Europe) in which case, again, female warriors (for example Boudicca [not spelt right sorry] although she would need to be in a Roman theme) would be acceptable/somewhat make sense.

I also believe that people really just need to accept that girls and boys are interested in different things and however much society tries to ban everything old and hate all tradition boys are going to want to play with knights and castles (and maybe dragons and skeleton warriors or whatever) and girls are going to want to play 'shops' or have more French chateau style castles with Disney princesses. Btw, Aanchir, we know its 2019 and it doesnt matter whether its 1719, 1919 or 2019 boys are NOT interested in barbie doll rip off elf/fairies whose main colours and pink, purple and teal. (and yes we all know 'its just a colour' but you can push breaking gender stereotypes as much as you want, boys go for blue, girls go for pink, its not discrimination or a huge problem, its just life)

Baby_Yoda · January 2019

I only have two things to add, both coincidentally in relation to the last post:

The Vikings actually did have a very fair and democratic society for that period. Villages regularly held a thing called, well, a Thing, and it somewhat resembles our modern day court system. However, I doubt Lego would ever go for a hyper-realistic Vikings theme. Fantasy Vikings is niche as it is.

Blue/pink being assigned to male/female is most certainly not "just life". In fact, up until roughly the late 19th century, pink was considered masculine and blue feminine. This is because pink is essentially a lighter shade of red, which symbolises passion, conflict, strength etc. whereas blue symbolises calmness, empathy and to an extent intelligence.

The_Rancor · January 2019

I don't know how the thread got so vitriolic but I would offer a counter point to the OP - why not discuss more ideas around a totally new IP not heavily based on what's come before - and therefore open to being more adaptable to TLG's assumed core audience in the present day? My post is large but not as long as a lot of the others I promise!

An original IP theme I pitched to designers in a competition on my Inside Tour was a slightly different sci-fi route. It suggested a world further in the future where robots had become controlled by a sentient hive mind (thanks to an experimental power crystal/mineral) and had found a way to EMP or disable all other human technology. But rather than going the typical apocalyptic route, I was suggesting that the humans fought back in hand-built contraptions predominately made from natural resources like logs, stone etc. More importantly, the robots can't stand water and try to avoid the natural world - it's like kryptonite to them.

The idea was that the humans would have some mechanism-heavy vehicles and dwellings quite colourful with foliage and plants whilst the robots are mostly black or grey with trans-red or pink accents. The robots want to gather more power crystals (something to collect and trigger conflict like some of our favourite themes) whilst the human characters focus on destroying the hive mind - and perhaps develop their own little characteristics and back stories along the way (akin to Ninjago/Nexo Knights). Some of the topics here are somewhat familiar so I can't claim it's 100% original - but I'd like something like this to replace the slot previously used by Nexo Knights. I also think some sets could have additional cross-appeal to girls particularly if one or more of the main characters was female, but admit this might be a harder sell if the theme doesn't use minidolls (I can see why Aanchir suggested them for an Exo Force reboot, perhaps to broaden the appeal).

Pretty sure the old themes I'd like to return won't return in the format I'd like again - although I do like the way we're getting more creative space craft and gender crossover in Lego Movie 2 sets for example. I've never particularly bought much of TLG's girls themes historically - but I can't get enough of my Pop-up Party Bus!

tamamahm · January 2019

Brickchap said:

I also believe that people really just need to accept that girls and boys are interested in different things and however much society tries to ban everything old and hate all tradition boys are going to want to play with knights and castles (and maybe dragons and skeleton warriors or whatever) and girls are going to want to play 'shops' or have more French chateau style castles with Disney princesses. Btw, Aanchir, we know its 2019 and it doesnt matter whether its 1719, 1919 or 2019 boys are NOT interested in barbie doll rip off elf/fairies whose main colours and pink, purple and teal. (and yes we all know 'its just a colour' but you can push breaking gender stereotypes as much as you want, boys go for blue, girls go for pink, its not discrimination or a huge problem, its just life)

A) Elves is not a Barbie doll rip off

B) My son was quite interested in Elves, and could have cared less about the color

C) It is what society and marketing pushes onto kids that causes them to go for pink and blue, and has nothing to do with anything else. I have a son who is equally happy with a bright pink HP Pygmy puff blanket as he is with his dark blue Star Wars blanket. Why the love of a pink blanket, because it is freaking awesome Pygmy puff, and Nothing wrong with pink. I had girls just as easily prefer blue over pink.

D) The idea that girls like X and boys like Y and that is it, is just silly. Nope. My son never wanted to play knights and castle. Nope. My girls never wanted to play shops and French chateau style (not even sure what that is supposed to be) . In fact, most people I know with kids where certain toys expectations have not been pushed over other toys, have had kids with a vast range of interests. It doesn’t mean that a boy may not love cars, but may also love a wider range of interests. It does not means girls might not love dolls, but here, dolls were action figures, escaping volcanoes, climbing mountains, dodging evil villains, and the idea of my girls having just sat and and played shop because that is what girls do, is laughable..

E) None of the above matters. These discussions truly do not go anywhere. Person says X. Person says Y. Eyerolls across the board from everyone on everyone’s comments, and nobody has a different opinion. I mean really. Nothing I said above will cause someone to go, “WOW you are right. I have been wrong all this time. I can see now that there is a certain impact on kids based on what marketing and society pushes, and that maybe certain preferences are more inate, but that does not mean they are as inate as I was thinking. “ The flip, Nothing someone else said is going to cause me or others to suddenly go, “Wow you were right. All this time I had not realized boys like blue and girls pink, and they only play certain items based on their gender., and their is far more happening that is simply gender and that is just how it is.”

SprinkleOtter · January 2019

oldtodd33 said:

^ I actually really liked the old Universal sets like the #404. That's where you could really build what you wanted to.

As long as it's yellow and black, Mr. Ford?

SprinkleOtter · January 2019

Also, everyone suggesting an Exo-Force reboot...

Thinking about this kind of made me sad. Just look at LEGO Mechs these days. Masses of top-heavy bricks, with a maximum of two joints in the legs- if it has ankles, it doesn't have knees. If it has knees, no way it has ankles. Comparing the two, Exo-Force mechs are infinitely more poseable than modern mechs. And they were a LOT easier to play with, as they were lighter, and usually had joints that could support their weight (and I know the sets had their issues), while new mechs have exclusively ball joints (which are great for their purpose) to support heavy arms and legs. I feel like the original style of mech was so superior to what we see today...

Rant over!

Aanchir · January 2019

Brickchap said:

Hopefully sub-themes count as well: That is City harbour, farm and construction.

I suspect that part of the reason we haven't seen a dedicated harbour subtheme in a while is that lately all the "emergency services" subthemes have moved towards including both emergency personnel AND civilians for them to respond to. Which means that nowadays a lot of the sorts of civilian and commercial boats we saw in the previous Harbour sets in 2011 can be incorporated just as easily into Fire and Coast Guard sets. That said, it would certainly be nice to see another attempt at a freight loading dock or marina, at least as part of the Town subtheme like the 2018 Hospital and 2017 Container Yard.

As for construction, I agree it'd be nice to see it again. But I think it is quite likely that we will see exactly that next year. Construction is more or less on a three-year refresh cycle, but with a little quirk. Just as the annual pattern for Police seems to be "Classic Police - (more specific rural variant) Police - (more specific urban variant) Police - repeat", the three-year pattern for Construction appears to be something along the lines of "Construction - Mining - Demolition - Mining - Repeat".

This helps LEGO release a lot of the same types of vehicles like dump trucks, excavators, etc. without the context or play scenario getting too stale. We'll see next year if this prediction pans out!

Brickchap said:

Back to the historical themes. I started a discussion on them specifically and the general consensus was that lego will never do a historical theme again (or even a Creator train, another theme I want to return).

Now that prediction just seems flat-out silly to me. It's only been six years since the last wave of Castle sets — or from LEGO's perspective, not even one year, since Nexo Knights was originally envisioned as a new take on LEGO Castle. Theme categories like pirates, underwater, underground, etc. have managed to make a successful comeback after way longer than that!

A lot of people seem to also have the weird idea that Nexo Knights is proof that LEGO had "given up" on traditional Castle. I don't agree with that at all. As stated above with regard to City, LEGO loves to play around with different variations on their most timeless so that even the more standard versions of those themes always feel fresh and new to kids. And from what I've read, the idea of Nexo Knights was first pitched internally back before Ninjago was even launched, so it's not as though it's something that designers would only ever consider if they thought traditional Castle sets were failing.

If anything, I suspect part of the motivation for launching a "future castle" theme (Nexo Knights) in 2016 was the same as the motivation for launching a "future spy" theme (Ultra Agents) in 2014: that with new Star Wars movies over the horizon, LEGO wanted to carve out a place for LEGO Space style design cues (lasers, jet engines, bright glowy transparent bits, etc), that compared to an actual Space theme wouldn't have to compete as directly against the inevitable flood of Star Wars merchandise and marketing associated with the sequel trilogy and anthology films.

I mean, if LEGO really believed that kids didn't care about knights and castles anymore, why would they bother to make their newest "big bang" theme knight/castle inspired in the first place? It's not as though they created LEGO Ninjago because they thought kids didn't care about ninjas and samurai, or LEGO Atlantis because they thought kids didn't care about sea creatures and submarines.

The Castle theme has proven its resilience time and time again. A few years away from the type of castles that a lot of AFOLs have come to prefer isn't somehow a sign that LEGO has abandoned those sorts of sets for good.

Brickchap said:

Hopefully this time I will make myself clearer when I say that the reason historical themes dont sell…

Here's another thing that's puzzling to me — I have yet to see ANY credible evidence that historical themes don't sell. That mostly just seems to be something fans of these themes assume because they can't fathom any other reason that LEGO wouldn't have the same kind of heavy, year-after-year emphasis on Castle or Pirates sets that they have on City, Friends, or Ninjago sets. Is it really far-fetched to think that the recent waves of Castle and Pirates might have sold just fine, and LEGO is just prioritizing stuff that happens to sell better?

I mean, usually the number of sets LEGO commits to a theme is based on how much confidence its past sales (or the sales of similar themes in the past) have given them. Now, it's well understood that Town/City has been LEGO's most consistent staple theme. So let's pick any year that you think LEGO Castle seemed to be going really strong — not from a design perspective per se, because that's totally subjective, but a popularity perspective. How about 1984? Even back then, LEGO had around 50% more new Town sets than Castle sets. What about something more recent, like 2008? LEGO had a good dozen Castle sets that year… but City had well over twice that.

Ninjago and Friends, on the other hand, are themes that far surpassed the expectations LEGO had for them at launch (and their expectations at launch were nothing to sneeze at). The fact that they can reliably support a range of sets similar in size to the City theme should be plenty of indication that the level of demand they've demonstrated is greater than the Castle and Pirates themes had managed in the past. It's not that LEGO never gave Castle or Pirates or Western sets a chance, it's that the chances LEGO took with some of their current biggest evergreen products paid off to an extent that the chances taken on Castle or Pirates or Western never did
None of this is meant to disparage the classics. But as sacrilegious as it might sound, themes like Ninjago and Friends have raised the bar. So even if themes like Castle and Pirates were still as popular as they'd ever been, it might not guarantee them the kind of annual presence in the LEGO roster it did back when there WEREN'T other themes achieving Town/City levels of success.

Brickchap said:

…So in a Viking theme, female warriors would be acceptable.

But in a regular European medieval theme Aanchir, they would NOT. Whether its political correctness or simply a design choice, there should not be female knights or soldiers in a historical setting.

lol, that's a load of baloney. Regardless of the scarcity of female knights and soldiers in real life, people put up with way bigger breaks from reality than that in medieval fiction, as well as in LEGO Castle sets. If you draw a line at women in armor but not at dragons, then you can't credibly claim your concerns are based on historical accuracy. Even Tolkien was willing to send Eowyn into battle in one of his climactic scenes… don't know what to say if a book from the 1950s with an almost entirely male cast is too progressive for you in terms of gender roles.

Pitfall69 · January 2019

All this talk about assigning colors to boys and girls got me thinking about the "color" scene in "Reservoir Dogs"

Pitfall69 · January 2019

...and I agree with @tamamahm ; these kind of discussions never really go anywhere. You aren't going to change anyone's mind with long drawn out comments. What that tends to do is put people off. This is a pretty good topic and God forbid it stays on topic and civil. I know...I know...I am the King of derailing topics, but it is a new year so...

pharmjod · January 2019

This whole thread is practically TL;DR

TOP 5 DISCONTINUED THEMES THAT NEED TO COME BACK! (Least to best)

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